


can't live for tomorrow (i might not have that long)

by afrocurl



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Community: apocalyptothon, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-21
Updated: 2014-08-21
Packaged: 2018-02-14 00:46:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2171541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afrocurl/pseuds/afrocurl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>HYDRA's plan succeeds and the world is left to follow the deaths of millions and millions of people.</p><p>What would happen if Fitz, Simmons and Triplett weren't the first to die?</p>
            </blockquote>





	can't live for tomorrow (i might not have that long)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [marcelo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marcelo/gifts).



> I truly hope this is something that'll work for you. Open prompts get the best of me. ;)

HYDRA exists. HYDRA exists. 

It makes no sense to anyone aboard this ship, but it soon must. 

Coulson, May, Skye all are shot dead in the Hub. Fitz, Simmons and Triplett are spared, though they don’t know why.

(HYDRA will never admit what classified as aberrant behavior or threat levels to determine how they killed over one hundred thousand in the first day, let alone the first million in the first week.

(They never admit why Fitz, Simmons and Triplett were spared, but running commentary assumes that Garrett wants them all for his team, for his new era.)

The Hub is nearly decimated. It’s only a matter of time before things get worse, they assume, and so they make a decision to stay where they are.

Better safe in one location - even if that location has been the spot where half their team was killed.

They never talk about Ward. 

Never.

-

Through miracles that they still don’t want to believe, no one else in the Hub is dead after that first week.

Fitz starts to work through the math, to find a way to determine if or when they’ll be killed and finds nothing.

HYDRA wants them alive. Wants them to work with them. None of them want to, they say in hushed tones in the room they share now. Triplett won’t work for NAZIs (or whatever you want to call HYDRA now), especially after all the work his pops did stopping HYDRA in the 40s. Fitz and Simmons won’t because they respect Coulson, May and Skye too much to turn their backs on the team.

They all would rather die than be party to HYDRA.

-

News reports suggest that after three months of HYDRA’s attacks, the world’s population is now at three million, with more and more people dying as the algorithm continues to run. Nations collapse without leaders, without opposition leaders, without people.

The US must be a mess outside of the safety of the Hub. Scattered video and audio reports suggest looting, riots, even more murders between remaining citizens. There are also the reports of people coming together, coupling together in times where anyone could die at any time.

In the confines of the Hub, they dance around each other, feeling each other out as all agents are trained to do. They test the boundaries of friendship, Fitz and Triplett especially. Cooking meals together, sleeping in the same room, eyeing everyone else that walks in with disdain because they all must be HYDRA operatives now.

Garrett and Ward lurk from time to time and the sight of them alone makes the three of them want to hide - if only they could - but none of them leave the compound. The other agents might be coerced into HYDRA, and so they all leave them alone and go about their lives as if no one else matters.

It’s not that they worry about death at the hands of the helicarriers and HYDRA, but they worry about what will be left of the country.

Heat signatures suggest that the population is still concentrated in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, but in places that once held millions of people. They are now lucky to have a million people in New York. Los Angeles has maybe half a million people, if that. 

The news reports that are still able to broadcast don’t mention the scores of dead bodies that happen daily, but instead try to talk about recovery efforts.

Scoffing at the idea of recovery now, they try to work through the process of following the algorithm to its end, wondering how many people will be left.

-

Three months after the first shots were fired, Fitz, Simmons and Triplett give up the pretence of not being a romantic team. They have spent all their time together, and all the tension of the world’s fall apart lead them to closer quarters and closer beds.

First, it was Triplett and Simmons, their slow dance evolving from their first meeting into something simmering below the surface in the facility, touches shared as they cook a meal or as they practice with weapons in the target range. Hidden behind the tension between Simmons and Triplett was the tension between Fitz and Simmons that they had long wanted to ignore but found impossible in quarters with only the three of them as pleasant company, their long history as students together coming into the fore. 

It’s slow to build between the three of them, but once the tension bursts one night in their room, the chasm is as wide and deep, their needs trumping their directives.

Bringing the three of them together takes no time after it’s clear that the world’s gone to hell in a handbasket and that they might as well enjoy what time they have left.

-

Three separate twin beds pushed together are the new norm. In the waking hours they go about their business: looking at statistics for how long the food provisions will last versus any need to start farming just outside, compiling a list of necessary weapons that must not get into HYDRA possession, determining what agents might still be on their side.

At night, however, all of those tasks bleed away into something much simpler, much baser. Passion long dormant awakens and three bodies intertwine to test how far they will go for each other.

-

Six months after the three of them became a unit - on and off the clock - the Hub is breached. HYDRA has largely left the space alone after the initial attack, but Garrett and Ward have been off helping to coalesce the HYDRA order to stop by in ten months. Other agents have come and gone, but none of them know if they are still SHIELD or HYDRA. The question of who was on their side is more relevant than before, because this breach reverberates all through the walls, strong and imposing.

So the breach is something new and something scary. HYDRA has had no reason to co-op this base to their operations - yet - but no one left alive has come here looking for help.

The three of them stay in one corner of the lab hoping that whoever has come will leave them alone. That whoever has come will only want to raid the supply stores of weapons and tech.

Their hopes are for naught, though, because the intruder is not a random civilian from the hills of Idaho or the Dakotas, but the Winter Soldier. His arm gleams in the neon light and his eyes are hollow and dead.

Knives are at the ready, but Fitz and Triplett stand in front of Simmons as the man who was Bucky Barnes looks as if he wants to kill them all. Instead of pulling out another knife from his cargo pants, the Winter Soldier pulls out a piece of paper and slides it over the table towards them.

Triplett eyes the man who worked side by side with his pops in disbelief as he read the letter.

_Agents Fitz, Simmons and Triplett,_

_Your records have been exemplary so far as members of S.H.I.E.L.D., but with its downfall, HYDRA has requested your presence and your services. You will follow the Winter Soldier back to a transport before you arrive back at the Triskelion within three days._

_Alexander Pierce_  
Director  
HYDRA 

Triplett yells that the man who helped to kill Red Skull would never work for HYDRA, but the Winter Soldier looks as if he understands nothing said. Simmons draws Triplett back and reads the letter herself before the three of them walk out of the room without giving the soldier an answer.

In hushed tones they discuss the prospects of working for HYDRA or facing the wrath of the man who killed Captain America, and they come to a decision. One that they keep quiet about until their three days are up.

-

The Winter Soldier had been a staple in the Hub for the three days before the trio could answer Director Pierce, his ire rising with each hour that he watches them and cannot act.

Their decision has been made for days, and now is when they can finally act on it.

Together, the three of them hold each other close and Fitz presses a button on his tablet and lets go. They run away as fast as they can, knowing that in three minutes the Hub will be gone, and with it the Winter Soldier.

The world outside of SHIELD and HYDRA awaits.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [redacted] for their support in plotting and to [redacted] for their beta help.
> 
> Title from Today by Smashing Pumpkins


End file.
